1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a photosensitive recording medium on which color images are recorded and formed by the action of light modulated in accordance with image information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-39303 discloses a conventional photosensitive recording medium coated with photosensitive microcapsules so that color images can be transferred and formed on plain paper.
This photosensitive recording medium comprises a base material such as paper or a resin film and a photosensitive layer coated on the base material, and the photosensitive layer is further coated with photosensitive microcapsules having as materials encapsulated therein a photosensitive material capable of hardening upon reaction with light and an image-forming material comprising a pigment or the like.
Thus, upon exposure of this photosensitive recording medium to light in accordance with image information, there occur some areas in which the photosensitive microcapsules have hardened and other areas in which they have not hardened. Thereafter, this medium and plain paper are brought into face-to-face contact, which are then, e.g., passed through a pair of pressure rollers so that an external force is applied to the microcapsules, whereupon the microcapsules having not hardened are collapsed but the microcapsules having hardened are not collapsed. Hence, from the microcapsules thus collapsed, the encapsulated materials comprising the image-forming material are released. Then, upon transfer of the encapsulated materials to the plain paper, images are formed on the plain paper.
However, the photosensitive recording medium disclosed in the above publication employs photosensitive microcapsules which are sensitive to light with a wavelength of the ultraviolet region, and hence, for writing, the medium must be exposed to ultraviolet light before images are recorded, resulting in a very low practical utility. Accordingly, the present applicants have made studies to bring out a visible-light photosensitive material capable of direct hardening upon exposure to visible light rays. As the outcome of such studies, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 3-39747 discloses a photo-hardening, photosensitive composition of such a material, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 3-77952 discloses a transfer recording medium employing such a photosensitive composition in the form of microcapsules.
Japanese Patent Applications Laid-open No. 6-27626, No. 6-51501 and No. 6-51502 also disclose image-forming microcapsules in which the above visible-light photosensitive material and an image-forming material such as a pigment are encapsulated.
In a dispersion in which such image-forming microcapsules are dispersed, a binder resin is added to prepare a coating composition, and this coating composition is coated on a base material such as plastic film so as to be in a stated thickness, followed by drying to form a coat layer. Thus, a photosensitive recording medium is obtained.
Since, however, those on which images are actually formed by transfer are image-receiving sheets such as plain paper when such a photosensitive recording medium is used, it has been necessary to use two kinds of consumables, the photosensitive recording medium and an image-receiving sheet. Accordingly, there have been problems that image-forming apparatus making use of these two kinds of consumables can be made compact with difficulty and require a high running cost.